Lit Hub Daily: September 26, 2023

• “I’m only myself in front of my typewriter.” How Joan Didion became Joan Didion. | Lit Hub Biography

• A totally scientific and accurate flowchart for which hyped-up fall book(s) you should read. | Lit Hub

• “If you don’t feel the full horror of that moment with your whole being, I’ve failed.” Madeline Miller, author of Circe, and Emily Wilson, translator of The Iliad, discuss breathing new life into ancient classics. | Lit Hub In Conversation

• 27 new books to round out your September. | The Hub

• Hermione Lee considers Mavis Gallant, “a writer for whom nothing is alien and everything is possible.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• Alex Reisner explores Book3, the database Meta uses to train generative-AI, and finds Shakespeare, Bukowski, and How to Housebreak Your Dog in 7 Days (among others). | The Atlantic

• Stephen Marche reflects on writing a political thriller with Andrew Yang. | The Washington Post

• “The series is a unicorn of children’s literature: chapter books geared toward new readers that are a pleasure even on the hundredth read.” Genevieve Smith profiles Abby Hanlon, the author of the Dory Fantasmagory series. | Vulture

• The Eater staff rounds up fall’s best books for food lovers. | Eater

• After nearly five months, the WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement to end the writers strike. | Deadline

Also on Lit Hub: How Nora Fussner turned a reality TV job into a novel • Jayne Anne Phillips on uncovering the hidden aftermath of the Civil War • Read from Ayana Mathis’s latest novel, The Unsettled